My <350£ PC Build (without Case,DVD & PSU)

Woody_FX

Woody_FX

Woody_FX

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13 Jul 2005
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Intel Core i3-2120 3.30GHz (Sandybridge) Socket LGA1155 Processor - Retail £99.98

Gigabyte Z68AP-D3 Intel Z68 (Socket 1155) DDR3 Motherboard REV 1 £84.98

Western Digital Caviar Blue 500GB SATA 6Gb/s 16MB Cache - OEM
£61.99

Asus ATI Radeon HD 6670 1024MB GDDR3 PCI-Express Graphics Card £59.99

Crucial Ballistix Sport 8GB (2x4GB) DDR3 PC3-12800C10 1600MHz Dual Channel Kit £31.99

I could reach a little higher if I really needed.

I'm building this to run Windows 7. Have a case with DVD drive and 580watt psu.

Only think I will be using this machine for is playing Guild Wars 2. So will be running Guild wars 2, Skype and MSN at the same time I guess.

My concerns are that the network card/interface will be laggy or unreliable and sound quality could be bad, but i think Gigabyte are a well respected Mobo maker so maybe not.

I'd be very grateful for all thought, suggestions or critique.

Cheers,
-Woody
 
 
stulid said:
YOUR BASKET
1 x Intel Core i3-2120 3.30GHz (Sandybridge) Socket LGA1155 Processor - Retail £99.98
1 x Gigabyte Z68AP-D3 Intel Z68 (Socket 1155) DDR3 Motherboard REV 1 £84.98
1 x Western Digital Caviar Blue 500GB SATA 6Gb/s 16MB Cache - OEM (WD5000AAKX) £61.99
1 x XFX ATI Radeon HD 6570 1024MB GDDR3 PCI-Express Graphics Card £52.99
1 x Cooler Master GX 450W '80 Plus' Power Supply £35.99
1 x Crucial Ballistix Sport 8GB (2x4GB) DDR3 PC3-12800C10 1600MHz Dual Channel Kit (BLS2CP4G3D1609DS1S00CEU) £31.99
Total : £381.43 (includes shipping : £11.25).




Never skimp on the PSU, always get a decent one and the GX450 will be ample, review,
http://www.hardwaresecrets.com/article/Cooler-Master-GX-450-W-Power-Supply-Review/1234
Click to expand...

Is there a reason you chose the 6570 over the 6670 ? Its just as good? Are there any other parts there you think I could spec better?
 
Woody_FX said:
Is there a reason you chose the 6570 over the 6670 ? Its just as good? Are there any other parts there you think I could spec better?
Click to expand...

Well its was just to get the price lower, the game and usage you mention dont need to much GFX power. But if you do decide to try your hand at another game, then you may want to spend a bit more money on say a 6850@£90
 
YOUR BASKET
1 x EVGA GeForce GTX 460 Superclocked 1024MB GDDR5 PCI-Express Graphics Card £107.99
1 x Intel Core i3-2120 3.30GHz (Sandybridge) Socket LGA1155 Processor - Retail £99.98
1 x Gigabyte Z68AP-D3 Intel Z68 (Socket 1155) DDR3 Motherboard REV 1 £84.98
1 x Western Digital Caviar Blue 500GB SATA 6Gb/s 16MB Cache - OEM (WD5000AAKX) £61.99
1 x OCZ ZS Series 550W '80 Plus Bronze' Power Supply £46.98
1 x Kingston HyperX Genesis Grey 8GB (2x4GB) DDR3 PC3-12800C9 1600MHz Dual Channel Kit (KHX1600C9D3X2K2/8GX) £38.39
Total : £452.32 (includes shipping : £10.00).



The 6850 stulid mentioned has a good preorder price at the mo. However that 460SC is on offer for the same usual price of a 6850

http://www.anandtech.com/bench/Product/542?vs=539

The EVGA 460 is clocked higher so the scores should be higher. You can't OC the i3 CPU but you sure as hell can the 460. 850mhz is easily attainable :)

Dedicated GPU gives the rig quicksync (via lucid virtu) and the 460 GPU will add cuda support and superior game performance. Making it an excellent "all round" machine to justify the extra cost.

Kudos to stulid for almost getting bang on budget though! Oh remember you don't pay P&P either if you link your account ;)
 
Thats a good call on getting a better graphics card.

Looking at the Passmark G-Card bench marks the 6670 looks a lot weaker then the 6870 and the GTX 460.

Ok I sleep on it.

Is everything else about the setup ok? I don't have anything thats really going to bottleneck the system?

Should I go for a SSD disc drive maybe? Since if I only install Win7 and Guild Wars 2 a 120gb SSD disc should have enough space for both?
 
Woody_FX said:
Thats a good call on getting a better graphics card.

Looking at the Passmark G-Card bench marks the 6670 looks a lot weaker then the 6870 and the GTX 460.

Ok I sleep on it.

Is everything else about the setup ok? I don't have anything thats really going to bottleneck the system?

Should I go for a SSD disc drive maybe? Since if I only install Win7 and Guild Wars 2 a 120gb SSD disc should have enough space for both?
Click to expand...

If you use the supplied software to OC the EVGA 460 you will pretty much have 6870 performance. Adobe software uses cuda so Im pretty sure it will come in handy for you at some point.

That mobo can have a small SSD added later as a "cache drive". It's called smart response if you want to read up on it. Basically it's a "no faff" hybrid HDD upgrade.
 
Either spec is good, Hono's just has the better graphics card of course, and a better PSU.
A 6850/460/6870 are good cards, whether you get them depend son what you do and how much you want to spend really.

As far as an SSD, that again depends on money, is 120GB is really enough for you and you can afford it - the M4 128GB is £134 atm
http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=HD-009-CR
SSDs are great and will make anything on them feel much faster, especially Windows. Though you may find 120GB limiting if you decide to install more/store more on it?
 
beejjacobs said:
Either spec is good, Hono's just has the better graphics card of course, and a better PSU.
A 6850/460/6870 are good cards, whether you get them depend son what you do and how much you want to spend really.

As far as an SSD, that again depends on money, is 120GB is really enough for you and you can afford it - the M4 128GB is £134 atm
http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=HD-009-CR
SSDs are great and will make anything on them feel much faster, especially Windows. Though you may find 120GB limiting if you decide to install more/store more on it?
Click to expand...

Cough * COUGH *

Better RAM too ;)

YOUR BASKET
1 x Samsung SpinPoint F4 EcoGreen 2TB SATA-II 32MB Cache - OEM (HD204UI) £107.99
1 x EVGA GeForce GTX 460 Superclocked 1024MB GDDR5 PCI-Express Graphics Card £107.99
1 x Intel Core i3-2120 3.30GHz (Sandybridge) Socket LGA1155 Processor - Retail £99.98
1 x Gigabyte Z68AP-D3 Intel Z68 (Socket 1155) DDR3 Motherboard REV 1 £84.98
1 x OCZ ZS Series 550W '80 Plus Bronze' Power Supply £46.98
1 x Kingston HyperX Genesis Grey 8GB (2x4GB) DDR3 PC3-12800C9 1600MHz Dual Channel Kit (KHX1600C9D3X2K2/8GX) £38.39
Total : £498.31 (includes shipping : £10.00).



Similar but added a fast eco 2TB drive (claims to be as fast as 7200rpm rivals). If you were tempted to add a small SSD later on (more expense obviously) you would still have LOADS of storage aswell :) Yes initially you are using a 5400rpm HDD but that's what laptops use and they run windows just fine :)
 
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honosuseri said:
Cough * COUGH *

Better RAM too ;)
Click to expand...

What makes you think that.





From Anandtech
Final Words

I think we confirmed what we pretty much knew all along: Sandy Bridge's improved memory controller has all but eliminated the need for extreme memory bandwidth, at least for this architecture. It's only when you get down to DDR3-1333 that you see a minor performance penalty. The sweet spot appears to be at DDR3-1600, where you will see a minor performance increase over DDR3-1333 with only a slight increase in cost. The performance increase gained by going up to DDR3-1866 or DDR3-2133 isn't nearly as pronounced.

As a corollary, we've seen that some applications do react differently to higher memory speeds than others. The compression and video encoding tests benefited the most from the increased memory bandwidth while the overall synthetic benchmark and 3D rendering test did not. If your primary concern is gaming, you’ll want to consider investing in more GPU power instead of a faster system memory; likewise, a faster CPU will be far more useful than more memory performance for most applications. Outside of chasing ORB chart placement, memory is one of the components least likely to play a significant role in performance.

We also found that memory bandwidth does scale with CPU clock speed; however, it still doesn't translate into any meaningful real-world performance. The sweet spot still appears to be DDR3-1600. All of the extra performance gained by overclocking almost certainly comes from the CPU overclock itself and not from the extra memory bandwidth.

Finally, although the effects of low latency memory can be seen in our bandwidth tests, they don't show any real world advantage over their higher latency (ahem, cheaper) counterparts. None of the real-world tests performed showed any reason to prefer low latency over raw speed.
Click to expand...


To keep the cost down seeing as it was supposed to be £350 in the OP, I'd start with this. Then add additional storage in the future if it's ever needed.


YOUR BASKET
1 x Intel Core i3-2120 3.30GHz (Sandybridge) Socket LGA1155 Processor - Retail £99.98
1 x OcUK ATI Radeon HD 6850 OC 1024MB GDDR5 PCI-Express Graphics Card **PRE-ORDER ONLY PRICE** £89.99
1 x Crucial RealSSD M4 64GB 2.5" SATA 6Gb/s Solid State Hard Drive (CT064M4SSD2) £77.99
1 x MSI H67MA-E35 Intel H67 (Socket 1155) DDR3 Micro-ATX Motherboard - (Sandybridge) **B3 REVISION** £61.99
1 x OCZ ZS Series 550W '80 Plus Bronze' Power Supply £46.98
1 x Crucial Ballistix Sport 8GB (2x4GB) DDR3 PC3-12800C10 1600MHz Dual Channel Kit (BLS2CP4G3D1609DS1S00CEU) £31.99
Total : £408.92 (includes shipping : FREE).

 
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Well to be fair it is technically better then, also the price difference isn't massive but I do appreciate your point. I'd pay the extra just for the look of the kingston RAM myself, as silly as that may sound.

I do like your spec dave, if all the machine was for is to play one game (as the OP has stated). I do realise my spec is over budget but I've tried to explain why it's a better "all round" machine for the cost.

I'm only suggesting the 460SC as it is on offer I wouldnt pay £120 for one. Given the choice between a 6850 and that EVGA 460 i'd take the nvidia card everytime for the same price.
 
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